“Three B,” he said. “Right here.”
“What’s e, s, e, then?” Almost as soon as the words were out, she slapped a hand down on the stump again. “East, south, east! Leo, these are the turns inside the Three-B slot canyon.” She reached out, gripped his arm. “These are the actual directions.”
He leaned across the stump, fitting his lips to hers, feeling her smile curve against his. Adrenaline dumped into his veins. They were really going to find it.
“Are you ready?” he whispered, leaning his forehead into hers.
She nodded, kissing him again, teasing. His blood became helium, stars popping behind his closed lids. The words I love you hovered on the tip of his tongue.
But some sounds were so distinct Leo would know them anywhere. The sound of his mother’s voice, for example. A police siren. An egg cracking. Before his brain cataloged the sound, his body tensed.
Feet crunching through dry branches.
A gun cocking.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“HELLO, LOVEBIRDS,” A voice drawled from behind Leo. “Hands where I can see them.”
Lily peered around him, eyes wide, to find two men standing in the shadows.
The one holding the gun was taller, big, and filthy, with a blood-soaked rip in his pants and cuts and scrapes down each of his meaty biceps. The other one wasn’t faring much better. He was wiry and short, his blond hair matted with dried blood near his temple. A dirty bandage clung to the back of his hand. Both were wearing the same camo-chic style Terry favored.
The Lost Boys, she assumed.
Blinking across the stump at Leo, she took in his blank shock. Still facing her, he slowly raised his hands, mirroring her own movements. It was crazy, but her first thought was to wonder whether, before this trip, he’d ever had a gun pointed at him. Leo’s life was normal. He worked in a cubicle and went on wine-tasting tours. He made cheese in France, for crying out loud.
A week with her, and he had a dead friend, another with a broken foot. He had a deep gash on his cheek, and a pistol aimed at his skull.
Biceps used his gun to gesture to his friend. “Jay,” he said. “Get their bags.”
“Looks like you’re bleeding, Jay,” she said, taking no small amount of pride that at least she and Leo hadn’t made it easy for them to follow. “Take a little spill?”
He glared and yanked her pack off her back so hard she stumbled forward, catching herself right before she hit the ground. Leo angrily charged, shoving Jay back, and in the commotion, she reached around for— Cool metal pressed to her forehead.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Biceps said.
Jay jerked her back to her feet while Biceps pulled Terry’s gun from her waistband. Fuck.
Leo’s eyes went wide. “You had that in your pants this whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” she said.
Jay made quick work of searching her pockets while Biceps went through their bags, carelessly tossing whatever didn’t interest him to the ground.
“Let me guess,” Lily said through gritted teeth as Jay took a liberal handful of her ass while digging into her back pockets. “Friends of Terry’s? He left us days ago, you know.”
“Yeah.” Jay moved on to Leo, patting him down.
“Do you know where he went?” she asked, playing dumb. “We woke up, and he was gone.”
Ignoring this, Jay lifted his chin to his friend. “Kevin. Find it yet?”
Biceps—Kevin—pulled Duke’s journal from her bag and held it up victoriously. “Yup.” He flipped through the pages before tucking it into his back pocket and nodding to the stump. “Three B-e-s-e, so helpful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Leo cleared his throat. “But I hate to break it to you: the code is a red herring.”
Lily tried to keep her expression neutral.
Jay frowned, stepping closer. “Excuse me?”
“The code on this stump,” Leo said. “You think it corresponds to a map in there, revealing the treasure’s location, but I’m betting it won’t. Terry—” He cut off abruptly, wincing a little. “Terry is really smart, and he had plenty of chances to take the journal. He probably studied the whole thing and realized Duke didn’t really leave anything important.”
“Didn’t leave anything important?” Jay repeated, swiping at a trail of bloodstained sweat that ran from his temple down into his eye. “How do you figure?”
“Why else would Terry leave it with us?” Leo asked, and Lily finally caught on. If these assholes took the journal, she and Leo would be completely screwed. “Seeing as you guys are here without him… he must know something we don’t.”